The International Songwriting Competition (ISC) is an annual song contest whose mission is to provide the opportunity for both aspiring and established songwriters to have their songs heard in a professional, international arena. ISC is designed to nurture the musical talent of songwriters on all levels and promote excellence in the art of songwriting. Amateur and professional songwriters and musicians are invited to participate. ISC has the most prestigious panel of judges of all the songwriting and music contests in the world, offering exposure and the opportunity to have your songs heard by the most influential decision-makers in the music industry.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Lee Brice’s Top 10 hit “Love Like Crazy” got the star treatment from Lady A today in the band’s Wednesday Webisode. Thanks to Lady A’s clever way with a lyric, the title track to Brice’s debut CD is now a love song to…biscuits and gravy and the gastronomic marvels of the Waffle House menu.

"This is really funny, and I am honored that Lady A decided to tackle my song," Brice said. "I understand that mine is the second song they've spoofed and only two songs in, they've perfected the craft. Hey guys, how about a writing session in the next few weeks?”

“Love Like Crazy” spends its 48th week on the charts this week, making it one of only four titles to spend at least 48 weeks on the Billboard Country Songs chart in the magazine’s 66-year history. On the flip side, Brice co-wrote Garth Brooks’ smash hit “More Than a Memory,” the only song in the chart’s history to debut at the #1 position.

A quick consulting tip from Jaye, for what it's worth, Lady A: yes, "television" is a mass medium and so saying to the audience "some of you" as if you're talking to a group of people is the way most folks have traditionally done things on old media, web video (and radio!) is at best experienced one to one.

Improve your impact and level of engagement by talking to one person. Drop the editorial "we" and stop reminding me that you're talking to a camera, a microphone and a world-wide web.

In the early 90's, he was Vice President/General Manager, Coleman Research and told us:

"Generally, Optimum Efficient Schedules are 40 to 60 spots per week. The goal of OES is to hit half your cume three or more times with ONE piece of copy. OES gets results. The reason it works: it applies programming theory to scheduling advertising on your station. In effect, it is placing a commercial into a "power current" rotation for a week. OES doesn't mean running two spots per hour from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm. Instead, it requires separating that one piece of copy by approximately two to three hours and blitzing the radio station with it six times in the 18 hours between 6:00 am to midnight. When scheduled properly, with good vertical and horizontal protections, there is no burnout. OES gets results for advertisers by convincing them to collapse what might otherwise be a three week budget and running it ALL in one week. Yet, when properly scheduled, it has no negative impact on programming or time spent listening.I do research among country listeners. The ONLY time I've heard them complain about commercials is one specific client - Nutri Systems - and it wasn't that they were running it too much, it was the creative hurt the image of some of the air personalities who were associating themselves with it. We hear listeners say 'why is it that only fat people work in radio?' Nutri Systems appears to realize that they hit that creative too hard and they now are changing their creative direction to compensate.Believe it or not, there is NO BURNOUT on this type of 60 to 70 spot per week schedule unless you have irritating copy. As a researcher who talks to listeners all the time, I can tell you that OES doesn't impact TSL. What it DOES impact is RESULTS. If you can convince an advertiser to try it once, they will come back to it again and again. And, they will end up spending more of the budget in radio. Because OES proves that radio works better."

Finally, I’d postulate that PPM also now shows why that math worked (and still works) so well and also why running the same spot two or three times in one hour only irritates listeners without improving results.

It increases frequency without building reach, creating burnout among that half of the audience who listens ten minutes per occasion on average rather than hitting more and more two minute drive-by listeners.

.. at least that's how it calculates on my "back of an envelope research."

Monday, July 26, 2010

“There are no free passes for these artists. If an artist makes a truly awesome song as good as the stuff that got him here then we play it,” says Gregg Swedburg, program director of KEEY/Minneapolis. “But every time I play a mediocre song from an established artist it means I’m not playing somebody new who has a great song.”

With new talent constantly emerging, programmers must decide which older singers to let go as their fans age out of the station’s target.

That challenge has been around at least since I took mt first country programming job in 1973.

When I took over I was greeted by a ton of calls asking, ‘Where is Stonewall Jackson or Jack Green.’ At the time country was crossing over with artists like Buck Owens and Glenn Campbell so the older acts of the '50s and '60s were no longer being played.

Similar cycles repeated approximately every 10 years until 1989 when a group of new artists including Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, George Strait, and Alan Jackson burst onto the scene, pushing country radio’s popularity to new heights.

But now the fans who championed the class of 1989 are 20 years older and the question of when those artists should move along, like Stonewall Jackson did in the early '70s, is looming large.

They’ve lasted longer than any group in the history of country that I’ve been aware of.

The key to it all, and what makes country also different from other formats, is that country radio isn’t about artists, it’s about songs.

Any artist can have a hit if they pick a great song. That’s what’s cool about country.

Many thanks to Chicago-based Media Life writer Mike Stern for helping us tell the country story so lucidly.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

A programmer I greatly respect who oversees multiple stations in a major PPM market theorizes that the reason why rock formats do so well in metered measurement comes down to a simple thing: the songs are a minute or two longer + the guys who love them don't want to miss a single note of these soundtracks of their lives, driving them to listen a minute or two longer on average at every listening occasion to the stations which play them.

Personally, I suspect that there is more to it than that, but as someone who spends seven days a week trying to convince air talent to never waste a second, bring every bit of passion, prep, concentration and execution excellence from the instant they crack the microphone until they turn it off, it is an example I'll use a lot.

In diary ratings measurement, of course, the audience behaves exactly the same way but we've never been able to measure it so discretely.

If you're not ready with something creative and compelling to say, having practiced it to be sure it comes off flawlessly natural, play as long of a song as it takes until you're completely ready to be nothing but your very best.

JA: Country is a format where, every 7 or 8 years, there’s a new set of younger artists that come in. Randy Houser is the George Jones of today. There’s a lot of others as well, but the format doesn’t stay the same. Hank Thompson saw that more clearly than George Jones did. There are certainly a lot of artists that have a lot of sour grapes as (the format) moved away from them. George is certainly one of those who went through a tough time. In any pop music form, you have to be pretty adaptable, and be a pretty good marketer. You have to listen to where the audience is going and try to be where they are. Some artists will do that while others couldn’t care less where the audience is, “This is me. You can kiss my ass if you don’t like it.”

LL: Many people say that today’s country sounds like bad ‘70s pop.

JA: I think there’s truth in that. That’s Kenny Chesney’s music you just described. But, there’s more than that going on (in country). That is only part of the mix. It’s always been like that. You would have said the same thing about Stonewall Jackson’s “Waterloo” or Pat Boone (in the ‘50s). Country music has always been watered down chicken rock, to some degree, but that is only part of it. There was George Jones and Johnny Paycheck years ago, and that (traditional country style) still exists today with an artist like Jamie Johnson. (Country is) not just one thing. It’s a variety of sounds that is more inclusive than most people think it is.

There’s a mix of sounds in country today. Have you heard Jamie Johnson? Oh, my goodness. He and Montgomery Gentry are in the mix. At the same station, they will add Taylor Swift. So I think that there is always a balance. There’s that sort of rock sound that today’s boomers like from when they were kids—that’s part of a country mix—and, yet, the more acoustic, natural and authentic sound is also part of it as well.

LL: Will there ever be an oldies country format playing those ‘50s and ‘60s vintage country hits?

JA: No I don’t think so. I think it will always be a variety.

LL: The Classic Country format comes the closest to being an oldies’ format.

JA: Classic Country has always been there, and continues to be there. We have some Classic Country stations that are #1 or #2 in their markets. A new Classic Country station just signed on in Milwaukee a couple of weeks ago. The definition of Classic Country has changed. Country Classic today starts at about 1993 where at one time it was the ‘50s and ‘60s.

I think what keeps country (radio) from fragmenting, is that the older folks who like country seem to like the new music too. They like the older music, but they don’t dislike the new music. That’s true today.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Just like a guy behind home plate, Arbiton is in the business of calling things objectively.

Yet, this ump, like one who secretly roots for the home team, has all of his financial marbles on radio. So, in their monthly PPM briefings, while they’re never going to get caught by the opposing team whispering “next time he throws that one, SWING at it,” they are trying to tell us all something, since no one on the broadcast side of the business knows as much about panel/behavioral measurement as ARB folks do and many of them on the customer-facing side of the company were successful radio executives.

So, what does it mean when they say “Rock formats also scored well..”?Let me take a few guesses in the spirit of playful teasing our friendly ump.

The ladies in your 25-34 and 35-44 female cells don’t seem to be using as much radio at work as guys in your sample do?

When Arbitron SVP of marketing Bill Rose points out that the high cume/high daily time spend exposed (broad appeal and high passion) format stations in some cities is AC and calls that place “happy land”?

Your direct marketing and commercial free hours are working nicely? But, don't tell advertisers you can't sell them those hours. Or, we found some 25-49 women for you this time and we’ll try to keep them in the panel for as many months as we can?

Country falls into a second tier of performers in most markets, purportedly with high cume but lower daily time spent exposed (or broad appeal but less passion), along with CHR, Hot AC and news?

Country will do better if the percentage of Hispanics in town is very low, even nicer if there's no viable direct demo competition and the one which will win in the rankers will probably have the lowest commercial unit load?

Inside Radio was on the call and notes this morning that highly-targeted formats with high passion placed in the third segment (low cume, high TSL) such as regional Mexican, urban AC, news/talk, Spanish hits and urban contemporary?

We’ll be knocking on your listeners' home doors soon, hoping that the above average number of people per household in those neighborhoods believe us when we promise not to turn them in to immigration enforcement?

Cancel your PPM contract, do your own research. All hope is lost for you if you try to sell with our small sample estimates at anything approaching the top tier's rates?

The results, previewed yesterday, are part of a larger, forthcoming Arbitron study that identifies the common characteristics of top-tier formats in PPM.

Hopefully, they’ll decode the meanings so we can all stop guessing and reading between the lines and have more confidence in what's driving the numerous unpredictable up's and down's that media buyers love to beat us up about. Strangely, they never seem to want to pay for the "up" audience levels but only the "down" ones.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

All it takes is a hundred dollar camera and some freeware editing software and you’re in the video business, right?

Wayne Campbell, longtime Senior VP at Nashville’s venerable Filmhouse, which has been crafting video messages for radio stations and personalities about as long as anyone gives some excellent advice:

"Rather than show spots that might be Academy Award winners, in that they are pretty TV spots or that they have all kinds of neat graphic effects that may be fun to look at, we prefer to show people our 'best work' that win the "Work House" awards. The best TV spots are the ones that have been designed for one purpose -- NOT to win awards, but to 'get the job done.'

"My advice to anyone who is considering the use of video is to take the time even before you even decide to use the medium, over the air or online, say to yourself: 'why do I want to be on TV?' 'What message do I want to communicate to this mass audience?'

"The advantage of television and online video is that you can get a message out to a mass audience in a very quick amount of time in a very pervasive way. Because of that intrinsic power, it is actually possible to do more damage than good if you communicate the WRONG message about your product.

"In general, however, I can't think of a more exciting, advantageous time to be using a mass medium like television with all the attention that is being drawn to country music right now. It is an excellent time to simply tell the story of all the strategic benefits of "today's country," for example.

"In trying to decide what your message should communicate, you may have a number of tools available to you: strategic research to show you where the opportunities may lie, particularly if you have a country competitor; input from your consultant; perhaps you have the luxury of doing some focus groups, to test some creative approaches to see how the people in your market react to a spokesman, or music videos, or seeing station personalities, testimonials from a particular country artist, or from actual listeners, or actors. Use as many of these tools as you have available to you before you begin the creative process.

"Give yourself plenty of time to identify exactly WHY you want to be on video and what it is you want to say. Then, judge your creative ONLY in terms of how effectively and clearly it communicates EXACTLY what it is that you wanted to say."

Once a message or an implication about you is out there, it's out there forever.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

An artist's personal manager asked me the other day what I’d charge to listen to songs and help pick music for his client’s new project.

Of course, I was very flattered that he was willing to not only solicit my two cents’ worth, but also pay me very well for it, but I said “no, thanks.”

A&O has one job.

We work with radio stations to grow their share of audience.

Along the way, of course, we teach people how to create powerful listener experiences driven by compelling content.

That involves training/motivating talent, sharing techniques which improve impact/program commercials/promotions, interpreting/executing research recommendations and helping make music/rotation decisions that not only delivers on the expectation our brand image promises, but adds as much "extra" creativity, surprise, entertainment value and delight as possible.

A&O’s music information is based on our clients’ specific local situations and thus you’ll never see it being used as a promotional tool.

At Albright & O'Malley, being clear about what you do also means knowing what you won’t do as well.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Last month’s Arbitron-Research Director revelation that 22.2% of PPM cume is “P-1” and delivers 52.4% of the average station’s total average quarter hours (Ratio: 2.36:1) spotlighted how radically the numbers programmers have learned to use to track performance have changed.

Diary averages remain 35.7% of the average station’s cume is “P-1,” delivering 70.4% of average quarter hours. (Ratio: 1.97:1)

Does the difference in the ratios mean that having one of your heaviest users in the PPM sample is 20% more important than it has been to achieve consistent performance in diary samples?

Other new metrics which also require further investigation:

Diary turnover ratio, your total cume divided by average quarter hour persons audience, equals the number of times a song or announcement must be played before about half your cume will hear it two times in a week.

With a diary review or making use of software like Maximiser or PD Advantage you can calculate how many days per week your average diarykeeper writes down in their diary.

4.1 days per week is the best I've seen. 3.6 days per week is a little on the low side. That additional half day of average "regularity" can make a MAJOR difference in your diary-based ratings.

In PPM, since meters are in motion, on average, almost two thirds of the hours in a 24 hour day and most of them are in use seven days a week, the need to extrapolate such things using math goes away. Using meters it’s possible to see exactly how many days per week, times per day and average minutes per occasion the average panelist listens to radio overall and also to your station specifically. For example, DMR has stated that 94% of PPM panelists consistently use the same amount of radio week after week, with the heaviest users turning on the radio 31 times per week for an average of 15 hours. Sixteen of those occasions are spent with their favorite station.

Diary studies for years have shown that you get most of your quarter hours from "at work" listening and most of the average station's cume comes from "in car." A typical station that had 60 25-54 10:00 am to 7:00 pm weekday diaries that reported "in car" listening to a station, 14 "at home" and 15 "at work." Those 15 "at work" diaries reported 346 quarter hours of total listening, while the 60 "car" books contributed 378 quarter hours. Typically, it can take four times the cume (diaries) from "in car" to equal the same number of quarter hours from typical "at work" listeners. People think that cume builds average quarter hour. In fact, IN CAR listening builds cume and AT WORK builds average quarter hour - and it is equally important to have BOTH. A healthy station could have at least 70% of its cume "in car" and a similar percentage of its quarter hour "at work."

PPM replicates that, making it clear that in car is where most people switch stations a lot and at work they tend to dial around a lot less.

What does that say about traditional turnover/reach and frequency (OES)-based music rotations?

PPM also appears to find more males who listen at work which diaries have failed to register, but diaries report more female at work listening than PPM does.

What's real?

It’s going to be interesting to learn more about the study by Alan Burns and Associates released today which reportedly shows one-quarter of all women who listen to adult contemporary and CHR formats believe there’s no station in their market that understands them. “And that leads to erosion in radio usage,” Burns says.

Interviews with more than 2,000 female radio listeners found that two-thirds of women who think no station “gets” them are listening to radio less as a result.

“Either their interests and values have changed, and radio hasn’t kept up, or radio has changed in ways they don’t appreciate,” Burns adds.

So which is it? PPM accurately measuring real drops in women’s usage of radio? Or, a bias built into diary vs PPM methodology?

If getting more men who listen at work into our targets is a key to doing better in PPM ratings, will radio move further away from the (long term) tastes of females in pursuit of (short term) higher shares?

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Medicine Hat and Area came out and showed their overwhelming support for individuals whose lives were affected by the recent flooding throughout Cypress County in Southern Alberta.

In a mind boggling 20 days Jim Pattison Broadcasting and the Medicine Hat Exhibition and Stampede put together a Flood Relief Concert featuring Corb Lund, Kalan Porter, The Straight Jackets and Mahoney. When all the monies were counted an amazing $70,000 will have been given to the Red Cross 2010 Flood Relief Fund for Southern Alberta. We understand that this is now a provincial record and possibly the largest single donation to the Red Cross in Canada. It couldn’t have happened without the special bond that is shared around Southern Alberta. There is a certain synergy that exists from city to country that unites us all.

On the Monday morning following the Father’s Day weekend flood Medicine Hat born and raised CHAT-FM Music Director Mike Doll was the first to say let’s put on a concert to raise funds for flood relief and took on the roll of lead organizer for this event. By that morning he had secured a partnership with The Medicine Hat Exhibition and Stampede.

Taber boy Corb Lund volunteered his services for the concert as did Kalan Porter whose family ranch is just outside of Irvine, one of the hardest hit areas in Southern Alberta. Additionally Medicine Hat talent The Straight Jackets and Mahoney all volunteered their time. CHAT-FM and CFMY-FM took care of all performances expenses allowing 100% of the door to go to Flood Relief 2010.

We had our “VIP SkyDeck” bus as close to the stage as we’d want to be, and it was loaded with listeners and clients throughout the weekend. Really a cool vantage point from high above the crowd, and we got rave reviews from everyone that attended.

Justin Moore came over and hung out for awhile on our SkyDeck, Steel Magnolia came by… they were great. We go out through the campgrounds each morning (in our Ambulance!) and deliver “Hangover Survival Kits” with a toothbrush, granola bar, bottle of water, etc. It’s always really great, and we get a lot of awesome response from it, but it’s a pain in the butt to stuff those bags each night. This year, Steel Magnolia (spelling "O-H-I-O") was hanging out, saw us stuffing the bags, and came over to help!The best part of the weekend though, started was something I nearly dodged. Early on Saturday, a woman walked up to our rig and asked if I had any way to get her daughter to meet Keith Urban. I did have an arrangement to get into the meet & greet, but for all I knew this woman was from Timbuktu. She told me the story of her daughter that had been involved in the Make A Wish Foundation, and her wish was to meet Keith Urban. However, she aged out of eligibility for the program before the wish could be granted, so she was S.O.L. I was skeptical, but she produced some newspaper clippings of her daughter’s chronic illness, and how she raised over $100,000 for a Heart Walk, etc. Though the Make A Wish thing wasn’t happening for her, their community pulled together enough $$ to get them tickets for Keith’s day at Country Concert, which is not cheap. A ticket to get in on Saturday was $110 for one.

We took her daughter back to meet Keith, and though I’m sure he’s used to crying women throwing themselves at him, it was still a pretty touching moment.

I privately spoke with Keith’s manager on site, explained the situation, and we were told to wait at the end of the line and he’d spend a few extra minutes with our group, which he did. He focused on her for the bulk of the time, was unbelievably attentive, and when he asked what her favorite song was, what her name was, and how to spell it, I knew something great was going to happen on stage. We gave her our stage front tickets, and sent a video camera with her for a part of the show, which just happened to be when Keith dedicated her favorite song, “Kiss A Girl” to her. Truly an unbelievable night that made a very ill girl smile, and forget, even for a moment, what she’s been going through.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Age and sex are just the beginning of the things you must know about your audience in order to compete effectively.

Today, you better know where your audience lives, brand preferences - whether its your radio station OR your client's brand, product consumption, lifestyle data, shopping habits, psychographics, use of other media - not just what other radio stations they listen to.

What is cable penetration in your market?

Satellite radio?

How many have smart phones? Which ones?

Percentage of households by age cell which no longer have land line telephone service?

Download/streaming preferences? (music discovery priorities)

What part of your survey area has more than average/less than average penetration for country and other forms of music?

Where do your listeners use you at work?

What other stations do they also use, by daypart and by listening location?

The more you know about ALL these things, the more 'on target' your programming and marketing can be.

Thursday, July 08, 2010

My goal, (perhaps yours too?) if you worked in broadcasting in the 60's, 70's and 80's, was to get to the city of Oz(the largest metro station that would hire you) and find that little room with the huge transmitter and a booming "voice."

Many of those stations were high on the AM dial and it was exciting to exude the power of mass appeal which seemed to magnetically draw huge audiences.

yes for the love of god don't become one of those stations that play country one minute and R & B and other genres the next. I am afraid that JRFM is slowly drifting off of my regular radio play, mostly because I hear "the house that built me" SO MUCH IT'S ANNOYING! I've given up on doing those surveys, constantly saying I hate that song yet still hearing it numerous times in a day. But back to the point, that song is NOT country!!!

Love that song but it's not country... I don't think Train is trying to cross over into the country market but there are a lot of country artists that have crossed into the pop market which is why you hear country on the pop stations now.

AWE MAN - country challenge??? soul sister...ummm...YAH WHAT EVERYONE ELSE SAID...hey Roo...go look up country music in the dictionary..if JRFM changes to be just like everyone else...i will just have to go download all the country music i can, and drop the station -my Ipod still has room on it...lots of room - please dont make me do that. its too much work..lol

Gail - I've started doing that, I rarely listen to JR now as I put all the songs I love on my ipod and have a radio adapter for my car :) ....I felt I had no voice with the music advisory panel, they still play that crappy Miranda Lambert song a million times in a day, so I said screw it and now I have my iPod with songs I want to hear!